Roland FP-60X Review – How Good Is It?

Roland’s efforts in the portable digital piano department over the last few years have been extremely impressive and downright awesome. We’ve seen Roland put out a line of digital pianos that are portable & also cover every price range.

The Roland FP-60X comes to us as the successor to the ever-popular Roland FP-60. Roland has done something very interesting here as they have decided to drop the price, yet not drop really any features.

Typically when a company reworks a series, we see the price stay the same or go up slightly. With the FP-60X we see a few hundred dollar difference in price.

While I seem surprised, I’m not all that surprised as there was a huge jump in price from the FP-30 to the FP-60, yet people felt like it wasn’t warranted.

So, where does the FP-60X fit with the total series? The FP-60X sits between the FP-30X and the FP-90X, targeting itself toward the intermediate to advanced level of pianists depending on budget.

Let’s take a look at the former FP-series as the X series has just improved upon the following:

• Roland FP-10 – entry-level targeted towards beginners (learning software/price)
• Roland FP-30 – entry-level with a great keyboard bed
• Roland FP-60 – Aimed towards the intermediate level
• Roland FP-90 – Incredibly advanced option with some state of the art features

Note: All of these options have been upgraded, creating the X series.

Should you want to read about the digital pianos in the X series, you can check out the following in-depth reviews:

• Roland FP-30X
• Roland FP-90X

The FP-60X fits in right where the FP-60 did as it aims towards providing pianists with a professional option that is still pretty reasonable for what you’re getting.

Given the new price-point, the FP-60X becomes a tough opponent for anything near the $1,000 price range.

Let’s get into the review of the FP-60X below and give you our thoughts on whether or not you should buy it.

Design & Overview

The Roland FP-60X comes to the table sporting an impressive, slim, and sleek design. The aim for portable digital pianos has been to give great connectivity, provide a good keyboard bed, provide solid speakers, and to do so all while remaining portable.

The market has gotten better with each year when it comes to portability and overall quality.

The FP-60X excels in this department providing us with a phenomenal keyboard bed, solid speakers, and a slim and sleek design. It also doesn’t disappoint when it comes to Bluetooth capabilities.

If your one for aesthetics, the FP-60X is available in two different colors, both black and white. I personally think they both look awesome.

We see the FP-60X weighing in at 42 lbs, which is the same as the FP-60. If you compare this to keyboards that are down a step in price, you will see on average about a 10 lb difference.

This isn’t a huge difference in weight and the only time you would really notice this is if you’re touring or gigging frequently.

Should be looking to quickly mess with the EQ’s on your tones, you can use the  3-band equalizer, as this will give you that on-the-go sound-shaping.

While this is sometimes subtle, it’s still a major plus for professionals who are looking for a little bit more in their instruments.

Something that I think is great with the FP-60X is that all of the buttons are LED lit. Sure, this may not seem like a big deal to most, however, if you’re someone who’s ever gigged, you will understand why this is important.

Should you not have much experience, the answer is that you often don’t have proper lighting when playing shows.

Should be looking to change sounds/patches, the last thing you want to do is switch to the wrong patch or select the wrong parameters.

While this is one of those simple things Roland has done, it’s extremely well-thought out and needed for professionals.

I’ve played about 400 shows and I would guess that I had poor lighting, even one major stage with huge lighting rigs. This has lead to me selecting the wrong patches numerous times.

Roland FP-60X Specs

• 88 Fully Weighted Keys
• PHA-4 with escapement
• Touch Sensitivity: 100x Key touch, fixed
• 16 pianos, 18 electric piano tones, 18 organs, 27 strings, 279 other = 358 total
• Polyphony: 256 note polyphony
• Effects: Ambience, modulation, rotary
• Playback Songs: 32
• Storage: USB Flash Drive
• Built-in metronome
• Recording: SMF, WAV, 16-bit/44.kHz
• Audio Bluetooth: V3.0
• MIDI Bluetooth: V4.0
• USB: Type A/B
• Sound: Supernatural sound engine
• Audio Inputs: 1 x 1/4″ (mic), 1 x 1/8″ (aux)
• Audio Outputs: 2 x 1/4″ (L/Mono, R)
• MIDI I/O: In/Out/USB/Bluetooth
• Headphones Jack: 1 x 1/8″, 1 x 1/4″
• Sustain pedal input
• Speakers: 8 x 4.7″
• Amp: 13Wx13W
• 19kg/42lbs
• 5″ height
• width: 50.8″

Connectivity

When we compare this with the FP-60, we see that the it’s a very similar setup with just locations being slightly different.

The USB/computer and USB/memory ports have moved to the right side, however, everything else is basically identical.

These changes are not anything really to worry about, as you have the same functionality.

If you’re looking to gig, the FP-60X provides pianists with a pair of 1/4″ line outs allowing you to hook up to a PA or amp with ease.

In the box, you will notice that the Roland FP-60X, like the FP-30X and the FP-90X, comes with the Roland DP-10 sustain pedal.

This is about a $50 value and the pedal itself is one of the best sustain pedals for live performance.

Pros

• Great keyboard bed (PH-A4)
• Increased number of presets from its predecessor
• Great connectivity for live performance/lessons
• Bundled software (Helpful for beginners)
• Reduced its price by over $300
• Impressive sound engine

Cons

• Has limited effects

Roland FP-60X VS Roland FP-30X

The Roland FP-60X is the step-up from the FP-30X, but is it worth the extra cost? In order to answer this question, we have to answer what your main preference is first.

There are a couple of upgrades from the FP-30X to the FP-60X. The jump up from the FP-30X to the FP-60X is nowhere near as steep as it was in the original series.

Let’s take a quick look at the similarities below:

• Same key-bed (PHA-4 with escapement)
• Same effects
• Both have 256 note polyphony
• Both have USB flash storage
• Built-in metronome for both models

Now let’s take a look at where the FP-60X outshines the the FP-30X

• The touch sensitivity of the keys
• Far more presets (358 VS 56)
• 2 more song playbacks
• Includes an audio input for a microphone
• More pedal inputs (3X1/4″)
• Superior speaker system (8×4.7″ VS 2×4.7″)
• Larger amplifiers (2x13W VS 2x11W)

As you can see, there are a few pretty nice upgrades when going from the FP-30X to the FP-60X. If you’re going to be using headphones, I would argue that maybe you would just be fine with the FP-30X.

If you’re looking to crank it up and play for people, the upgraded speaker system could work out nicely.

For those of you who enjoy writing music, you may also like the additional presets that you can pick from. There is a significant number of more presets in the FP-60X.

Roland FP-60X VS Roland FP-90X

The first thing to note here is that we are comparing two keyboards that are in completely different price points. With this being said, sometimes looking at keyboards that are more expensive is eye opening.

While the FP-90X is superior to the FP-60X in a number of ways, we will also give you a breakdown of where they are similar.

Similarities are as followed:

• Both available in black and in white
• Same audio inputs and audio outputs
• Same pedal inputs

As you can see, there’s not a whole lot in common between the two.

Let’s take a look at what makes the FP-90X superior:

• The FP-90X has 4 more presets (this isn’t significant)
• Better keyboard bed (PHA-50 VS PHA-4) The PHA-50 is Roland’s best keybed
• FP-90X has unlimited polyphony with piano and 256 with other sounds
• Speakers of FP-90X : 8 x 4.7″, 2 x 1″ VS 8×4.7″
• Much larger amplifiers (2 x 25W, 2 x 5W VS 2x13W)

Overall, the FP-60X doesn’t quite match up to the FP-90X, but it’s not supposed to. The most major upgrade is that the the FP-90X has a better keyboard bed with better action.

Wrapping Up

The Roland FP-60X impresses in the sound department and has continued to push the envelope. As far as the key-action goes, it has a solid key-bed in the PH-A4 and this aids in allowing the pianist to play with solid dynamics.

Roland has provided pianists with an awesome interface for the FP-60X which gives you an effortless and easy to use the digital piano.

Let us know your thoughts on the FP-60X below!